


Wound Together

by Shujinkakusama



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Crying, Despair, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 00:32:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11024835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shujinkakusama/pseuds/Shujinkakusama
Summary: Garnet and Pearl cry their brains out while Steven's off-world. Sometimes, all you can do is cry. // Angst, ambiguous relationship, Crying Mom Squad, set before the Wanted bomb.





	Wound Together

Their relationship had never been one-sided, but somehow, between Rose’s death and Steven’s recent surrender, there was a shift. A change.

 

If pressed, Garnet might have cited the Sardonyx debacle as a major turning point, but not for any of the reasons she suspected Pearl would have identified. But if pressed, right now, Garnet didn’t think she could muster a coherent sentence.

 

Still, where a wall had once been, there were no barriers now. Not in grief. And that was new, and different—and at once familiar and _right_. It had been hundreds of years since they had surrendered completely like this.

 

Another time, it might have been cathartic.

 

It took an effort not to fuse, but neither Garnet nor Pearl would have wished their grief on Sardonyx. In that vein, Garnet remained herself; Ruby and Sapphire couldn’t bear to part even now, and Pearl understood that better than anyone left alive.

 

Garnet’s visor lay discarded somewhere near the Temple door, and she was a crumpled heap atop Pearl, sobbing raggedly against her best friend’s shoulder, and she might have felt a little guilty if Pearl weren’t in a similar state, soaking her hair with tears. The Gems’ breath hitched in unison, and Pearl tried to rearrange her arms around Garnet’s head and shoulders in a desperate scrambling motion that spoke volumes about her fear, as if Garnet might be snatched away from her next.

 

Pearl tried in vain to speak, but her voice was choked in a sob, and Garnet didn’t have the presence of mind to pick out parts of words. She tried to rub Pearl’s back soothingly, but her hands were shaking; she clutched her sides instead, and that was just as well, because Pearl curled in on her and nearly toppled sideways.

 

Someone—neither Gem would remember which of them suggested it, and it might have been one of Garnet’s components—spoke up long moments later, with the suggestion that they get off the floor. It was the clearest sentence she could muster, but they were equally reluctant to actually move. Several moments passed in relative silence without either Gem moving, and at a glance, they could have passed for statues.

 

The world felt hostile and empty, cold and unforgiving, and Pearl somehow managed to untangle herself from the fusion to pull her upright. Garnet crushed her in a desperate embrace; Pearl might have passed out from a lack of air if she’d needed to breathe, but breathing wasn’t necessary, and she pressed her face against Garnet’s breastplate to cry.

 

Amethyst hadn’t abandoned them, exactly. Not quite. But she had taken to action where thousands of years of fighting had finally caught up to her companions; she had left with Connie, and Garnet’s future vision was so murky, so mired with panic and worst case scenarios that she didn’t know when or whether to expect her back.

 

But they _were_ alone, and a lack of reason to keep up pretense had landed them here, sobbing into each other like the world was ending. And it seemed to be—Earth had never felt so bleak as it did now, without Steven on it.

 

Platitudes would get them nowhere, but when Pearl could bear to release her, she leaned back in Garnet’s loose grip to cradle her face in her hands, puffy and blotchy from crying. Three mismatched eyes searched Pearl’s face for some kind of hope, and Pearl sorely wished she had some to offer.

 

“I love you,” Pearl croaked out, and it wasn’t the first time she had _ever_ said it, but it had been longer than a few years. Longer than either of them liked, deep down. Garnet felt her knees wobble, and Pearl’s hands found her elbows to steady her, and somehow the smaller Gem held her upright when Garnet crumpled into her with a sob. Garnet didn’t find her legs for several moments, but Pearl stood perfectly, eerily still, a pillar—and _that_ was unexpected, after Garnet had spent the past fourteen years trying to fill that role, herself.

 

Futures flashed blindingly across Garnet’s vision, and she couldn’t make sense of many of them. What she saw meant nothing; glimpses of a world she’d never been to, of a Kindergarten as haphazardly designed as Beta, but with exit holes so numerous that it looked like Prime. She saw red light, heard snitches of conversations in voices she couldn’t identify, and the world seemed to spin on an entirely different axis than it should have. Garnet whimpered, and she didn’t really know if she followed Pearl to the couch or if, half way there, Pearl had carried her.

 

Between them, Garnet cried herself out first, and although Pearl seemed outwardly collected, tears never stopped streaming down her cheeks. Garnet’s sides ached, and she pressed her face into Pearl’s thigh to escape the endless assault of information from her third eye. Pearl’s fingers caught in her hair, and she smoothed some back, hands trembling. She bowed her head while she cried, and Garnet wound her arms around her lithe waist, and Pearl didn’t make a sound.

 

It was some hours before Garnet could find her own voice, tired and trembling, and Pearl almost didn’t hear her in the too-silent beach house.

 

“I love you, too.”


End file.
